In July 2012, the University of California’s (UC’s) Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion issued formal recommendations to UC System President Mark Yudof for making UC’s 10 campuses “more inclusive and welcoming for Jewish students as well as all community members.” In pursuit of this goal, the report recommended that UC “push its current harassment and nondiscrimination provisions further” and “seek opportunities to prohibit hate speech on campus.” The report also recommended that UC “accept the challenge” of First Amendment litigation resulting from the adoption of such policies. FIRE wrote to President Yudof on August 8, 2012, warning […]

By Bob Roper at Columbia Daily Tribune For some time, many experts have been predicting the demise of higher education in general and research universities in particular, at least in their current form. Has that day of reckoning arrived? It is difficult to know with precision, but it is easy to identify tough problems facing this “industry:”… Read more here.

By Eugene Volokh at The Washington Post The Thomas Jefferson Center (with which I’m involved as a member of the board of trustees) has just released its yearlyJefferson Muzzles, so I thought I’d pass along the center’s explanation of who the “winners” are this year. Note that the Ccnter supports academic freedom and free speech broadly, and not just those aspects that are legally protected by the First Amendment; so you’ll see many private institutions mentioned here, even though the First Amendment as such does not restrict private entities, as well as the public institutions to which the First Amendment applies… Read […]

By Alex Kotch at Alternet News came on March 7 that North Carolina’s Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest will propose the deceivingly named Campus Free Expression Act at the state legislature next month. The act instructs the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors to craft a systemwide policy that would impose harsh penalties, including expulsion, on students, staff and faculty members who disrupt classes, public meetings or events… Read more here.

By Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights brought needed attention to the problem of sexual assault and harassment on college campuses with its 2011 letter telling institutions to enforce the law. But in so doing, the office has created a slew of new problems with implications for free speech and academic freedom. That’s the premise of a lengthy new report from the American Association of University Professors. … Read more here.

By Josh Logue at Inside Higher Ed The University of California Board of Regents will vote today on whether to endorse a statement on intolerance that condemns anti-Semitism, including some “forms of anti-Zionism.” That condemnation departs significantly from a draft released last week that equated anti-Zionism generally with anti-Semitism and drew sharp criticism from some faculty members and others. … Read more here.

By Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic At the University of California, there are students who believe that Israel’s creation was a mistake, that its occupation of Palestinian territory is unjust, that it should cease to exist as a Jewish state, or even that it should cease to exist entirely. And there are students who believe that Israel’s creation was an indispensable lifeline for Jews, that its residents have been under siege for most of the country’s existence, that Arabs and Palestinians bear outsized responsibility for regional conflict, and that anti-Semitism lurks beneath many condemnations of Israel. Read more here.

By Jared Sichel at Jewish Journal Does the latest report on “Principles Against Intolerance,” written by top University of California officials, offer a balanced compromise that would protect Jewish students while safeguarding free speech? Read more here.

By Anthony L. Fisher at Reason.com The University of California (UC) Board of Regents Wikipediais consideringadding “anti-Zionism” to an ever-growing list of unacceptable forms of “discrimination” that will be outlawed on the state university system’s 10 campuses. Read more here.

By Josh Logue at Inside Higher Ed The University of California System is trying again to adopt a policy that addresses intolerance on campus. After a draft policy was rejected last year amid First Amendment concerns, the new draft appears to be attracting more support. Read more here.

By Teresa Watanabe at Los Angeles Times University of California officials are proposing to include “anti-Zionism” as a form of discrimination that is unacceptable on campus, according to a long-awaited draft statement on intolerance released Tuesday. Read more here.

By Courtney Tompkins at The Daily Breeze When Simon Yung graduated from San Gabriel High School six months ago he could have walked away from the embattled school district, but his desire to give others a voice pushed him to do something different. Yung, 18, was part of a team of student journalists who tried to cover a story about the sudden dismissal of an inspirational teacher in May, but when students asked for comment from administration, they were shut down by their principal. The students fought back, challenging what they said was censorship and alleged the administrator had violated […]

By Mary Reichard at World News Group Academic inquiry needs open minds and open ears. So why do open mouths prompt college campus authorities to shut them with speech restrictions? Feminist lawyer Wendy Kaminer told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice last summer that the Department of Education is “out of control,” with a culture of censorship prevailing on campus. “Campus censorship, like western European bans on hate speech, establishes a right of particular audiences not to be offended at the expense of the universal right to speak,” Kaminer said. More recently, Republican presidential candidate Ben […]

By Thor Benson at ATTN: Recently, the topic of free speech on college campuses has sparked a fair amount of conversation. In fact the University of California system faced backlash for holding seminars about avoiding microaggressions; this was the topic of an October discussion held by Southern California Public Radio at the University of California, Irvine. The issue at hand? Microagresssions versus free speech. Micgroagressions according to a University of California memo are “slights, snubs or insults…that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target people based solely on their marginalized group membership.” Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for […]

By Sarah Kaplan at The Washington Post As clashes between Israelis and Palestinians heat up overseas, a war over the words used to talk about the conflict is unfolding at the University of California. The debate, which took over a school forum in Los Angeles on Monday, is as much about campus culture as it is about Israel, and it touches on all the topics that have made colleges the target of discussion and derision in recent months: diversity, tolerance, censorship, the increasingly unstable distinction between words that are unwelcome and speech that is truly threatening. On one side are supporters of a new policy that would broaden the university system’s “speech […]

By Robby Soave at Reason Online School has been back in session for just over a month, and there’s plenty of bad news—though a bit of good news—for advocates of freedom on college campuses. Here are three important recent stories that showcase the current landscape of campus speech and sex repression 1) The Pronoun Police Are Just Getting Started Watch your mouth: countless universities have policies in place to discourage students from using offensive language, and some—including the University of California—are exploring ways to make talking even less tolerable on campus. The University of Tennessee’s Pride Center was recently caught trying […]

By Kurt Chirbas at LA Times Responding to inconsistent policies on sexual assaults at college campuses, California lawmakers are considering a package of proposals to address the issue, including one that would require schools to disclose more information about disciplinary actions taken against student offenders. Another proposal would require all public colleges and universities to note on transcripts when a student is ineligible to re-enroll because of suspension or expulsion. Two other measures would expand the purview of community colleges in handling sexual assault cases. “The state of California has an obligation to provide a safe and secure learning environment […]

By Nathan Guttman at The Forward A 2010 State Department document provides the U.S. government’s only official definition of anti-Semitism. It is a detailed document that adds elements of anti-Israeli bias to the traditional definition of Jew hatred. This definition — developed to help the State Department monitor anti-Semitic trends in foreign countries — is now at the center of a debate raging about its use at the University of California. Moreover, both critics and supporters of the State Department’s take on this age-old phenomenon agree that its modern-day interpretation could have implications for the way that Israel-related issues are […]

By Greg Piper at The College Fix The University of California’s board of regents is voting in July whether to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. President Janet Napolitano supports adopting that definition, she told WBUR’s Here & Now program. That’s a dangerous idea, according to Will Creeley at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, because it could punish students for their free expression. State Department examples of anti-Semitism include claiming that Jews exaggerated the Holocaust or that they are “more loyal” to Israel than their home nations – speech that’s certainly offensive but protected by the First Amendment, Creeley […]

By Jenna A. Robinson at The John William Pope Center (Editor’s note: This is the transcript of a speech delivered at a meeting of the Shaftesbury Society on April 17, 2015. A video recording of the speech is available here.) Last month, six student government members at the University of California at Irvine voted to ban the American flag in some parts of campus. And although the ban was overturned, thousands of professors and students across California signed a letter supporting the flags removal. Just last week, University of Michigan administrators stopped a showing of American Sniper at the campus […]

By Liz Jackson at The Sacramento Bee Many black, Arab, gay and other students who experience daily acts of racist violence and blatant discrimination will be aghast at Tammi Rossman-Benjamin’s opening declaration in a recent Viewpoints article (“Jewish students need more protection on California campuses,” April 10) that “Jewish students are the single most vulnerable minority” at the state’s universities. As a Jewish alumna of UC Berkeley, I am alarmed at this attempt to elevate Jewish suffering over the experiences of other victims. To defeat one form of racism, we have to oppose them all. As an attorney for Palestine […]

College freshmen are lined up and asked to choose sides on a political issue. Those who pick the “wrong” side are sent to re-education classes for a week and monitored thereafter. A professor is reprimanded for explaining the origin of a politically sensitive term. Another student’s grade is in jeopardy for failing to write the president and promote a far-left cause. Still another is punished for reading a book about the sinister history of the Ku Klux Klan. It seems that someone was “offended” by the picture on the cover. Is it North Korea, Cuba or the former Soviet Union? […]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is again extending its reach onto University of California campuses, raising questions about the limits of free speech and how welcome Jewish and Muslim students feel at their schools. But this time, the controversy does not spring from the kind of direct confrontation that occurred two years ago when Muslim protesters tried to shout down the Israeli ambassador during a speech at UC Irvine and then faced criminal prosecution. Instead, the current debate is being stirred by studies UC commissioned about how to cool tempers and whether anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bias are serious problems on the system’s 10 campuses. The […]

No part of American society is supposed to value free speech more than our colleges and universities, but the University of California is now rethinking that idea. University of California President Mark Yudof assembled a team earlier this summer to assess “campus climate” in response to a series of Anti-Zionist protests and demonstrations. Yudof’s fact-finding team made a series of recommendations after visiting campuses, including banning hate speech. “When you ban speech, it has a funny habit of boomeranging back at you,” says Will Creeley, Director of Legal and Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Instead of pulling these […]

A task force appointed by the president of the University of California has recommended that the school adopt a code banning hate speech on campus as part of an effort to combat what it sees as an anti-Semitic atmosphere. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has rightly suggested that this is the wrong approach. Campus speech codes have been struck down by courts time and again. Public universities have almost no constitutional leg to stand on when it comes to speech codes. That being said, the climate on campus toward Jewish students and Jewish groups has certainly gotten […]

Does the University of California forbid the expression of some disfavored political views on its campuses? Not yet. But if the UC’s Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion has its way, it might start. Last month, that council issued its “Jewish Student Campus Climate Fact-Finding Team Report & Recommendations.” Through that report, the council recommends that the UC system adopt ill-defined hate speech codes and prohibit “hate organizations” from speaking on UC campuses. Those policies would inevitably trigger litigation against the cash-strapped UC, but the council is full of the sort of you-can-take-that-guy bravado-by-proxy that inebriated friends display in late-night […]

Ten years ago, the Supreme Court created a national furor in “Boy Scouts of America vs. James Dale” when it reversed a N.J.Supreme Court decision that ordered the Boy Scouts to reinstate an openly gay adult rejected as an assistant scoutmaster. At stake, despite this act of discrimination, ruled the U.S. Supreme Court, was the First Amendment’s right of “free expressive association.” To make freedom of speech, press and religion work, Americans have the right to freely associate to amplify their individual voices. This right is “crucial” in preventing the majority from imposing its views on groups with unpopular views, […]

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that damages the right of public university students to form student organizations dedicated to promoting and following certain views and beliefs, particularly those that are religious or political. In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a narrow 5-4 majority upheld the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s denial of official recognition to the campus Christian Legal Society. CLS required its voting members and leaders to sign a statement of faith that outlined its own particular religious worldview because it wanted to ensure, unsurprisingly, that these students were faithful to its mission. […]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday settled a key question about the anti-bias rules of public colleges and universities. Under the ruling, public colleges and universities may limit recognition to student groups that abide by anti-bias rules — even when the groups are religious and they object on religious grounds to some of the rules. The ruling rejected an appeal by the Christian Legal Society, which has sought at many public campuses to be recognized as a student group even though — in violation of many colleges’ anti-bias policies — it bars as members gay people and those who do not […]

by Peter Schmidt The Chronicle of Higher Education A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court held Monday that a California public law school did not violate the First Amendment in denying official recognition to a Christian student group that effectively excluded homosexual students from membership based on their beliefs and behaviors. But the parties involved in the case, as well as experts on student organizations, disagree over whether many colleges have policies similar enough to the one at issue in the case to be affected by the decision. To read the full article, you must log in to The […]

Can a public university force a Christian student group to accept as leaders students who explicitly reject core tenets of the group’s faith? On Monday the Supreme Court will entertain precisely this question-and the First Amendment right to freedom of association hangs in the balance. The facts in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez are straightforward. The Christian Legal Society (CLS), an evangelical Christian student group, accepts all students at its functions but requires voting members and leaders to sign a Statement of Faith. The statement endorses “biblical principles of sexual morality,” and it makes clear that a student who “advocates […]

Following years of conflicting lower court rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide one of the most contested legal questions in higher education today: whether public colleges can enforce anti-bias rules when religious student organizations seek recognition or funding. Both sides in the case before the court argue that they are defending students from discrimination. “Often university officials don’t like the religious groups and we see [colleges’ anti-bias rules] as one more mechanism for keeping religious groups off campus,” said Kim Colby, a lawyer for the Christian Legal Society, which wants the right to organize chapters at […]

Public colleges’ anti-bias policies have been taking a beating in the courts in recent years. Various federal courts have said that the policies can’t be used to deny recognition to Christian student groups—even if those groups explicitly discriminate against those who are gay or who don’t share the faith of the organizations. Many lawyers who advise colleges, even some who deplore these rulings, have urged colleges to recognize that the force of their anti-bias policies has been severely weakened. Students’ First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and expression will end up trumping strong anti-bias principles, or so the emerging […]

Universities have traditionally been places where debate and the free exchange of ideas have been welcomed. But after 9/11, that may be changing — as some recent, troubling incidents suggest. In this column, I’ll survey some recent incidents suggesting free speech on campus is in peril, and discuss the extent to which the First Amendment protects student and faculty speech Cracking Down on Student Demonstrators and Controversial Student Speech Recently, students at the University of Miami (a private school, but one with a stated policy of fostering free speech) demonstrated alongside striking maintenance workers to show solidarity. Now, they face […]

We hear a lot these days about the importance of diversity in ensuring that ideas are heard fairly. But the individuals who are most insistent about this are interested only in racial and sex diversity. Intellectual and ideological diversity is not what the enforcers of political correctness on campuses and other sectors have in mind. This magazine has helped pioneer evidence of how politically unbalanced most college campuses have become. Most recently (see our January/February 2005 issue) we presented the findings of University of California economist Daniel Klein, who found that the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in social sciences […]

Since University of California (UC) President Janet Napolitano announced in May that UC’s Board of Regents was voting on adopting new policies to combat intolerance on campus, the recommendations for these policies have gone from bad to worse. The Regents at one point considered adopting the State Department definition of anti-Semitism, which would have posed a threat to students’ ability to criticize Israel despite the protected nature of such commentary. Earlier this month, UC’s Office of the President proposed a vague and speech-chilling policy to address intolerance on campus. The Regents nixed those proposals last week in the face of […]

Yesterday, the University of California Board of Regents held an open meeting allowing students, faculty, members of the UC community, and other interested parties to share their thoughts on UC’s proposed Statement of Principles Against Intolerance. The statement came about after the UC Regents decided not to adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. Free speech advocates pointed out that a public university’s adoption of this definition as policy would raise serious First Amendment concerns and chill protected speech, including criticism of Israel’s government. Earlier this week, FIRE’s Will Creeley explained that while the Statement of Principles Against Intolerance […]

In a radio interview yesterday, University of California (UC) President Janet Napolitano stated that she believes the UC system should adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism. Responding to recent calls from rabbis, faculty, and alumni for the UC system to adopt the definition, Napolitano told Jeremy Hobson of Here & Now that the Board of Regents will vote on the proposal in July. However, if adopted and used as the basis for discipline by a public university system, the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism would likely violate the First Amendment by prohibiting protected expression. The definition, authored by […]

Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, religious student organizations at colleges and universities across the country have struggled with a dilemma: accept all students as voting leaders or members in accordance with so-called “all-comers” policies, regardless of their agreement with the club’s beliefs, or forego official recognition by the college and all the resources that comes with such recognition. In response to this ongoing dilemma, South Carolina’s Republican members of Congress have signed on to a letter urging universities in the state to protect religious student groups by allowing them to limit membership or […]

Today is Constitution Day, and there is no better way to celebrate than by making sure you and your friends (and your enemies!) know your constitutional rights. Earlier this month, Velma Montoya, a former member of the University of California (UC) Board of Regents and former chairwoman of the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, responded to recent censorship at California universities by urging the state’s students to learn about the Constitution so they can stand up for their rights. Everyone should heed Montoya’s message. As Torch readers know, colleges across the country maintain policies that […]

Four weeks after North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed into law a bill that allows religious and political student groups at the state’s public colleges and universities to limit their leadership to students who are committed to the group’s mission or faith, the debate continues over whether this was the right step to take to protect student rights. Last week, William R. Toler relayed some of the arguments for and against the bill in an article for The Richmond County Daily Journal.

Mark G. Yudof, the former president of the University of California (UC) system, recently weighed in on the state of free speech on the American college campus today. Pointing to this year’s “disinvitation season,” Yudof rightly lamented the tendency of too many students to advocate for or condone the suppression of ideas that they consider offensive or abhorrent. This message is especially welcome coming from the former head of an enormous public university system and a former constitutional law professor.

The New York Times recently reported that colleges across the country are withdrawing recognition from campus Christian student groups that require candidates for leadership positions to subscribe to their Christian beliefs. This trend is taking shape in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in the 2010 case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (PDF). That ruling held that the University of California Hastings College of the Law did not violate the First Amendment when it denied recognition to a Christian student group that required leadership candidates to affirm their belief in “biblical principles of sexual morality.”

‘The Huffington Post’ reported last week that Senator Patty Murray of Washington will reintroduce the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act after learning of harassment suffered by one of her interns while attending college. The intern’s story is shocking, and the Act is well-intentioned. Unfortunately, it is still as flawed as it was when introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey back in 2010 following the tragic death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi.

FIRE is pleased to note that the University of California (UC) Board of Regents has taken an important step to protect the expressive rights of its faculty. On July 18, it approved an amendment (PDF) to the Faculty Code of Conduct that gives professors the “freedom to address any matter of institutional policy or action when acting as a member of the faculty whether or not as a member of an agency of institutional governance.” The Code of Conduct guaranteed faculty free inquiry and the right to exchange controversial ideas related to their fields of expertise, but this amendment extends that […]

FIRE’s Will Creeley has been interviewed for an article in the University of California, San Diego student newspaper, The Guardian. The article addresses the recent call for the University of California (UC) system to prohibit so-called “hate speech,” an effort that FIRE opposed as clearly unconstitutional. Thankfully, the story has a happy ending: UC President Mark Yudof rejected the idea. Enterprising student reporter Mina Nilchian asked Will for his take on prohibiting hate speech. Here’s a taste: “I think life in a modern liberal democracy can be very challenging for many. At times our most deeply held beliefs are challenged […]

The Los Angeles Times published an interesting article yesterday on the issue of “anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bias” on University of California (UC) campuses. Among other developments, the article covers that UC’s Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion issued formal recommendations this past summer to UC System President Mark Yudof that UC “push its current harassment and nondiscrimination provisions further” and “seek opportunities to prohibit hate speech on campus.” Much of the content of the UC reports is outside the scope of FIRE’s mission, and we take no position on those particular issues. We are alarmed, however, that an […]

In a piece published on The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s website last week, Boston College professor Alan Wolfe reminds readers that “[t]he best campus climates are those that make people think.” We agree. However, as Wolfe points out, on two separate occasions in California this summer, administrative bodies forgot this truth when they called for censorship in response to various instances of heated debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first occasion occurred when the California assembly unanimously passed a nonbinding resolution late last month calling for a ban on public funding to any activity that could be considered anti-Semitic at […]

by Peter Berkowitz RealClearPolitics “I look to the diffusion of light and education,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1822, “as the resource to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue, and advancing the happiness of man.” Thus the 79-year-old Founding Father — principal author of the Declaration of Independence, first secretary of state, third president of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia — reaffirmed his life-long conviction that the American experiment in self-government depended on the quality of citizens’ education. The people of California might seem to agree. Echoing Jefferson’s wise words, their […]

Earlier this month, we brought news that University of California (UC) System President Mark Yudof had received a recommendation to implement a “hate speech” policy from a working group comprised of members of UC’s Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion. The recommendation asks Yudof to implement policies that fundamentally violate students’ expressive rights—including an outright ban on “hate speech.” The advisory council even states that UC should “accept the challenge” of First Amendment litigation. FIRE has asked President Yudof to reject that recommendation, and we’re cautiously optimistic about his response. To make our point even clearer, FIRE Director […]

First Amendment guru, blog don, and law professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA School of Law has a post noting FIRE’s involvement in pushing back against a report from the University of California (UC) Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion that recommends to UC System President Mark Yudof that UC adopt a “hate speech” policy. We at FIRE have outlined our objections to the Advisory Council‘s vague and unconstitutional proposal. Prof. Volokh goes beyond these legal questions to note some prudential considerations as well. Here’s a taste: [A] university campus is a place where counterspeech is especially likely to […]

Yesterday evening, FIRE was contacted by Steve Montiel, Media Relations Director for the University of California (UC) Office of the President, in response to yesterday’s FIRE letter to UC President Mark Yudof and the accompanying press release. Montiel sent us a copy of a letter President Yudof sent yesterday to “Concerned Members of the UC Jewish Community.” While Yudof’s letter does not respond specifically to FIRE, and includes discussion of concerns that are beyond FIRE’s mission, it does contain hopeful indications that President Yudof recognizes FIRE’s concerns about the threat to First Amendment rights presented by the fact-finding team’s […]

OAKLAND, Calif., August 8, 2012—In a letter sent today, FIRE warns University of California System (UC) President Mark Yudof against enacting unconstitutional “hate speech” policies on UC’s campuses. FIRE’s letter responds to a recent recommendation from members of an official advisory body that, in response to alleged anti-Semitism on campus, UC “accept the challenge” of First Amendment litigation. FIRE urges President Yudof to reject the recommendation, reminding him that decades of legal precedent make clear that broad, content-based bans on student speech violate the First Amendment. “Many people on campus see speech codes as a noble solution that will eradicate ideas and thoughts we disdain. But […]

OAKLAND, Calif., August 8, 2012—In a letter sent today, FIRE warns University of California System (UC) President Mark Yudof against enacting unconstitutional “hate speech” policies on UC’s campuses. FIRE’s letter responds to a recent recommendation from members of an official advisory body that, in response to alleged anti-Semitism on campus, UC “accept the challenge” of First Amendment litigation. FIRE urges President Yudof to reject the recommendation, reminding him that decades of legal precedent make clear that broad, content-based bans on student speech violate the First Amendment. “Many people on campus see speech codes as a noble solution that will eradicate ideas and thoughts we disdain. But […]

The Jewish Daily Forward is reporting a backward proposal in the University of California (UC) system. Motivated by concern for the environment for Jewish students on campus, UC President Mark G. Yudof’s Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion released a July 9th report recommending the adoption of a hate speech code that would prohibit much speech protected by the First Amendment. FIRE will be commenting on this illiberal proposal further over the next few days, but two quotes are worth reviewing at the outset. First, Harvard Law professor and member of the FIRE Board of Editors Alan Dershowitz, […]

While FIRE has won numerous victories this year in working to protect individual rights on college campuses, 2011 was a mixed year for the defense of students’ rights by the courts. Importantly, this year highlighted divergent theories of the First Amendment rights of students off campus. While some courts have held that schools are limited by the First Amendment in what they can regulate off campus, other courts this year held that things students say off campus can have almost unlimited disciplinary consequences on campus. This is a troubling trend, outlined in several cases below. In June, the United States […]

Back in October of 2009, University of California System president Mark Yudof issued a memorandum to all UC Chancellors announcing a systemwide policy change regarding the definition of discriminatory harassment in the educational context. Yudof’s memo noted that the prior UC harassment policies were “problematic for several reasons”—not least of which being the fact that they “created certain legal vulnerabilities” by failing to “track current case law regarding the standards for discriminatory harassment.” Acting on the UC General Counsel’s recommendation to remedy the problem immediately, Yudof announced a new interim harassment policy, bypassing the “full consultative process” usually employed for […]

Last week, Will covered the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s troublesome ruling (PDF) in Alpha Delta v. Reed, which upheld the decision of San Diego State University (SDSU) to deny official recognition to two student groups due to the groups’ requirement that members share their religious beliefs. SDSU argued that denial of recognition was justified because the student groups, a Christian fraternity and sorority, violated the university’s non-discrimination policy by requiring members to regularly attend church and demonstrate “personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord” (in the case of the sorority), and to “sincerely […]

In April 2007, FIRE won an important victory when Central Michigan University (CMU) reversed a policy banning ideological and political groups from “discriminating” on the basis of “political persuasion.” The case holds important lessons for freedom of association on campus that remain particularly relevant in light of last year’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. The controversy at CMU began with a student effort to derecognize the school’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) because of the group’s unpopular views. When this effort failed, students began to disrupt YAF meetings and created a Facebook group […]

Michael De Groote of the Deseret News (Salt Lake City) has penned an extensive article about the controversy over Christian groups on campus and the Supreme Court’s decision last summer in CLS v. Martinez. The article includes a map from FIRE data as well as quotes from Greg and Adam. Check it out here.

Last month, House Bill 2625 passed both houses of the Arizona state legislature and is now awaiting the governor’s signature. The bill contains a provision that would require universities to allow religious and political student organizations to select members and leadership based on a commitment to the organization’s mission. This provision appears to be enacted in response to last year’s Supreme Court decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which held that universities may constitutionally prohibit student organizations from denying membership to any interested student. As we have argued extensively (and as I contend in scholarship that will soon be […]

From the start, 2010 was the year of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. Perhaps more than any other case this year, developments surrounding Martinez occupied the docket of the Supreme Court, the time of FIRE staffers, and the inquiring mind of yours truly. FIRE had high hopes for Martinez. On January 1, we announced our excitement about the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the case, on certiorari to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. We believed that the Supreme Court would vindicate the First Amendment right to freedom of association for student groups at public universities. At the appellate level, the […]

This June, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s “all comers” policy in the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. According to this ruling, a college can require all student groups to accept all prospective members and allow them to become voting members and leaders, even if they are fully antagonistic toward the group’s mission. Unfortunately, the negative effects of the Martinez decision will likely be felt not just at Hastings, but at universities across the nation, as the Heartland Institute’s Ben Boychuk reports in School Reform News. Boychuk […]

Last week, I e-mailed FIRE’s supporters about the obstacles FIRE faces following the Supreme Court’s misguided decision in CLS v. Martinez. Today, I want to share the same message with you, our loyal Torch readers: Hopefully by now you have received my letter from last month explaining the considerable obstacle the Supreme Court placed in the way of FIRE’s mission. (If you haven’t, you can listen to me talk about these recent developments with Ben Boychuk of the Heartland Institute in this podcast.) On June 28, the Court delivered a severe blow to freedom of association and religious liberty on […]

FIRE President Greg Lukianoff sat down recently with Ben Boychuk, Managing Editor of the Heartland Institute’s School Reform News, to discuss the Supreme Court’s disappointing ruling in CLS v. Martinez. Their conversation is now available as a free podcast, which you can download here (mp3).

Last week, I blogged about the threat of universities opportunistically mischaracterizing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez to justify their unconstitutional speech codes. Before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in the speech code case of Lopez v. Candaele, the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has already done just that by filing a supplemental letter contending that Martinez requires courts to “defer to decisions of educational administrators, even in the free speech context and even in higher education.” The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which represents the plaintiff in Lopez, submitted its response to LACCD’s letter last […]

On Tuesday, I wrote a summary of what students experienced at the Third Annual Campus Freedom Network Conference. The same day, Greg Baylor, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, posted an excellent recounting of the “Philosophical and Practical Underpinnings of Academic Liberty” panel at the conference. He begins by noting Adam’s explanation of the utilitarian case for free speech drawn from John Stuart Mill’s work, then describes the “deontological” claim for free speech—that people have an inherent right to speak and listen even if the speech does not necessarily have any positive effect. This view is expressed in the Declaration […]

Well, that didn’t take long. In an unfortunate but not unexpected development, universities have already begun misguided attempts to exploit the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez by citing it out of context to justify their unconstitutional speech codes. In a filing with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last Thursday, attorneys representing the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) in the case of Lopez v. Candaele cited Martinez for the broad proposition that courts must “defer to decisions of educational administrators, even in the free speech context and even in higher […]

On Minding the Campus, FIRE friend and Brooklyn College professor KC Johnson asks an important question: Now that the Supreme Court has decided that an all-comers policy for student group membership is constitutionally acceptable, cui bono? Who benefits from this change? If you have been following FIRE for any length of time, I bet you can guess the answer: The “all-comers” policy has satisfied the Supreme Court. But from an educational standpoint, does it make any sense? What purpose is served by a college or university creating an official Democratic club whose membership is open to unabashed defenders of George […]

Nat Hentoff, an ardent, principled defender of the First Amendment and a member of FIRE’s Board of Advisors, has written a column about how last week’s Christian Legal Society v. Martinez Supreme Court decision negatively impacts the First Amendment right to free association. Hentoff laments the Court’s “embrace of political correctness” in denying the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at UC Hastings College of the Law the right to set belief-based parameters for who can be a voting member or leader of the group. The Court had previously affirmed a right to set such parameters in Boy Scouts of America v. […]

On Reason‘s website, Cathy Young has a column about why the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez could “set a dangerous precedent in sacrificing freedom for equality’s sake.” As Torch readers remember from our posts last week, the Supreme Court in Martinez upheld the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s denial of official recognition to the Christian Legal Society. The denial was due to a requirement by CLS that all voting members and leaders sign a statement of faith, which Hastings said was in violation of an “all-comers” policy that mandated that all […]

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education highlights the fact that the Supreme Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez probably has narrow applicability because it does not directly address the constitutionality of most universities’ policies, affirming what FIRE and others have been saying in response to the Court’s decision. Citing legal experts in the field of higher education law, the Chronicle article posits that Martinez is unlikely to resolve the question of whether public colleges may deny recognition, under the most common types of nondiscrimination policies, to student groups that wish to limit membership and leadership to those […]

This week, both The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times published editorials echoing FIRE’s concerns about the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times eloquently made the case for freedom of association and succinctly challenged the wisdom of the “all-comers policy” the Court deemed constitutional: The best argument against the policy is that it actually undermines diversity by making every student group potentially interchangeable in its membership. A better way to promote diversity of viewpoints is to allow groups on campus to define their beliefs — including religious beliefs — […]

One of the more common reactions in favor of the Supreme Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez—that a public university need not subsidize student groups that limit membership based on views that the university opposes—has intuitive appeal, but is antithetical to First Amendment principles. Those who agree with the Court’s decision, which upheld a public university’s requirement that all student groups accept all members, usually trumpet one justification for the ruling: They recognize that private groups may exercise their right of expressive association to exclude certain members, but argue that a public university need not “subsidize” this type […]

The Student Press Law Center’s (SPLC’s) Adam Goldstein published a scathing, must-read assessment over at The Huffington Post of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s denial of official recognition to the Christian Legal Society (CLS) and affirming the constitutionality of Hastings’ all-comers policy for student organizations. Goldstein stated that “the rationale of this opinion could end up doing more violence to student expression rights than any decision in the last 22 years.” Now, in a separate blog entry, SPLC Executive Director Frank LoMonte more directly examines the threat to SPLC’s constituency: […]

Muddying any straightforward understanding of Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez is the fact that there were, at various times, at least two distinct policies at issue at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, addressed Hastings’ “all comers” policy, whereas the dissent, written by Justice Samuel Alito, pointed out that CLS was initially punished under Hastings’ nondiscrimination policy. This confusion in the record, which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will have to sort out on remand, renders the Supreme Court’s decision a narrow […]

As FIRE detailed in yesterday’s press release, the Supreme Court in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez upheld the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s denial of Registered Student Organization (RSO) status to the Christian Legal Society because the student group did not follow the school’s “all-comers” policy. This all-comers policy—which we’ll discuss further in a forthcoming blog post—requires student groups to open their membership to all students in order to receive RSO status, no matter how antipathetic a particular student’s views are to those of the group. This means that at Hastings, CLS, a distinctly Christian group, must […]

FIRE has already provided one summary of the preliminary reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, and the commentary continues to flow. Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law Designate at New York University Law School, served as counsel of record for the libertarian Cato Institute’s amicus brief in support of CLS. Today, Professor Epstein adds his critical take on the decision in a column for Forbes. Regarding the narrow yet perilous path the Court charted […]

Reactions to today’s Supreme Court decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez have lit up the Web. The Chronicle of Higher Education and InsideHigherEd.com have posted articles detailing the case, and Reason‘s Jacob Sullum and the Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon have supplied summaries of the ruling. For our part, here’s FIRE President Greg Lukianoff’s response from our press release: “FIRE is deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. For all of the reasons stated in our brief, we believe the practical effect of this case will be the derecognition of devoutly religious groups-especially evangelical […]

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a relative moderate on the Supreme Court and a swing vote in many 5-4 decisions, was the only non-liberal Justice to join the majority opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. He was most likely the decisive vote in today’s decision. He was the Justice to whom the parties and the other Justices likely were trying to appeal, and therefore his opinion arguably matters most. Justice Kennedy’s brief concurrence illuminates why he ultimately decided that the First Amendment right to expressive association does not bar the University of California Hastings College of the Law from requiring student […]

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2010—In a blow to freedom of association and religious liberty on campus, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a public university may require its student organizations to admit any student as a voting member or officer, regardless of whether that student openly disagrees with or is even hostile to the group’s fundamental beliefs. “FIRE is deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. For all of the reasons stated in our brief, we believe the practical effect of this case will be the derecognition of devoutly religious groups—especially evangelical […]

The Supreme Court is expected to issue an opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez on Monday, the last day of the Court’s current term. The First Amendment right to freedom of expressive association on our nation’s public college campuses hangs in the balance. As Torch readers will remember, the case concerns the University of California Hastings College of the Law’s denial of official recognition to the Christian Legal Society (CLS) due to the student group’s requirement that voting members and those holding leadership positions sign a “Statement of Faith” indicating their support for the group’s core tenets. The group’s statement posits that “[a] person who […]

The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the highly anticipated case concerning whether student organizations have a First Amendment right to exclude those who disagree with their beliefs from voting membership and leadership positions. The oral argument grappled with the tension between students’ freedom of association and a public university’s desire to create a forum where students do not discriminate on the basis of status or belief. These weighty issues inspired college and law students to camp out in line with unprecedented commitment in order to attend the argument, due to the Supreme Court’s […]

This morning, the Supreme Court returned from its April recess to hear oral arguments in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a crucial case for the First Amendment right of freedom of expressive association on campus. As frequent Torch readers will already know, we have followed the case closely, and FIRE was joined by Students for Liberty in filing an amici curiae brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of petitioner Christian Legal Society back in February. Because of the weighty constitutional questions Christian Legal Society v. Martinez presents to the high court, the case has garnered significant media attention from […]

FIRE Co-founder and Chairman Harvey Silverglate has written an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal tackling the First Amendment issues at stake in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which goes before the high court on Monday. Harvey asks: “Can a public university force a Christian student group to accept as leaders students who explicitly reject core tenets of the group’s faith? On Monday the Supreme Court will entertain precisely this question—and the First Amendment right to freedom of association hangs in the balance.” In February, Harvey submitted the amici brief that FIRE and national student group […]

The upcoming Supreme Court case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez highlights the fact that universities’ expansive understanding of “discrimination” erodes speech and associational rights. As society increasingly likens invidious discrimination on the basis of immutable characteristics like race, gender, or disability to discrimination on the basis of belief or viewpoint, we lose our ability to make critical judgments necessary to develop and express our individuality and beliefs. This problem has certainly manifested itself on college campuses, and student groups at University of California Hastings College of the Law (where Martinez arose) and elsewhere have suffered as a result in […]

The American Council on Education (ACE) and a coalition of other higher education organizations filed an amici curiae brief on Monday (.PDF) on behalf of University of California Hastings College of the Law in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the upcoming Supreme Court case for which FIRE filed its own amici brief in February with Students for Liberty on behalf of the Christian Legal Society (CLS). Unfortunately, the ACE brief advances a number of arguments for upholding the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in favor of Hastings that are dangerous, misleading, and plain wrong. It also mischaracterizes key arguments made […]

Last night, Samantha Harris appeared on the Talk to Solomon show on CPNLive.com to discuss Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a case before the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the University of California Hastings College of the Law‘s refusal to recognize the Christian Legal Society (CLS) as a registered student group. Samantha answered questions about the Ninth Circuit’s decision to allow Hastings to require all student groups to accept “all comers” as voting members and about FIRE’s amicus brief in the case. As Will said in our press release last week, a decision by the Court to uphold […]

An article in yesterday’s Cornell Daily Sun, a student newspaper at Cornell University, discusses the conflict between student organizations’ freedom of association and their schools’ nondiscrimination policies that has been at issue on many college campuses in recent years. Sun reporter Dani Neuharth-Keusch discusses the issue as it relates to an episode right on Cornell’s campus last year as well as the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, for which FIRE will be submitting an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief. We’re pleased to see the Sun pay such close attention to Martinez and the […]

As FIRE’s Director of Legal and Public Advocacy, perhaps the most exciting thing to me about the New Year is the fact that in 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States has the opportunity to protect the First Amendment freedom of association rights enjoyed by student groups at public colleges and universities. By agreeing to hear the case of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez this spring, our nation’s highest court has promised to definitively answer important questions about the First Amendment’s protection of the right to freedom of expressive association on public college campuses. Christian Legal Society v. Martinez is the latest in a […]

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, an appeal of a March 2009 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejecting a Christian student group’s constitutional challenge of the University of California at Hastings Law School’s nondiscrimination policy. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling acknowledged that the school’s policy requires student groups to “accept all comers as voting members even if those individuals disagree with the mission of the group” in order to gain official recognition from the school, but held that these “conditions on recognition are therefore […]

Yet another university has impermissibly denied recognition and student fees to the Christian Legal Society (CLS) because of CLS’ requirement that its voting members and officers ascribe to a Statement of Faith regulating, among other things, sexual behavior outside of marriage. On December 14, the CLS chapter at the University of Montana School of Law (CLS-UM) filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the law school’s denial of recognition to the organization violated the group’s First Amendment rights to free association, free speech, and the free exercise of religion. The facts of the case are familiar—over the last several years, they […]

In the fall of 2003, two law students at Ohio State University’s main campus complained to the administration that the campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society, a student group, was violating the institution’s nondiscrimination rules. Those rules stated that all officially recognized student organizations — which are eligible to use meeting rooms and receive university funds — could not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and a number of other factors. Recognized student groups each had to sign a form promising to respect those requirements. Yet the two students said the society would not let them join because […]